Edition 3

In my previous edition of the WWEek I said I would discuss Judgment Day in this one. But to be honest with all of you, I didn't. Mainly because of that the Judgment Day PPV was a bit disappointing. Sure there was Rey vs Jericho, Shelton vs Morrison and even CM Punk vs Umaga was somewhat ok. But the rest was so-so at best. Christian vs Swagger was also a match that wasn't really special, but I was mostly disappointed by the ending of Batista vs Orton (why Flair why???) and mainly most of the Edge vs Jeff match. Maybe my expectations were too high, maybe they weren't. Anyway on to the next PPV in 3 weeks there's Extreme Rules, which will have the exact same card as Judgment Day only with stipulations, let's see how that works out.....

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! After Judgment Day it was expected to see Ric Flair appear on Raw. But watching Flair make his way to the ring, you might be wondering if Jericho was right all along: Flair thrives on the spotlight. Just watch him make an entrance at ROH and then compare it to his entrance this Raw. He loves the spotlight and the attention, just like Micky Rourke’s character in the Wrestlers as Chris Jericho has pointed out on numerous occasions. Anyway Rick Flair (the dirtiest player in the game) pointing out Orton’s cheating and getting intentionally DQed just didn’t feel right to me. Just as Cena coming to Batista’s and Flair’s aid after Legacy was taking Batista and Flair out didn’t make any sense to me. If it was Triple HHH you would have the Evolution-connection, but Cena……

A diva’s battle royal for a shot a Maryse’s Diva’s Title? Didn’t we see that on Smackdown when the Diva’s Title was just introduced? Maryse sprayed something in Mickie James’ face which lead to a win for Kelly Kelly.

So does anyone else think after watching Chavo vs Santino, that WWE is going to play the Santino/Santina mixed personality card? He was acting an moving like Santina, but when his offense worked he looked like remembering being Santino. We’ll see next week I’ll guess.

On last weeks Raw The Brian Kendrick promised to find a tagpartner to go after the tagtitles. So when Golddust appeared as The Brian Kendrick’s partner I thought what the hell…. But actually it turned out to be pretty funny DURING the match. Specially when Kendrick was pointing to Golddust to get some cheap-shots in and Golddust didn’t. After the match I thought it was going to be good too, but then Hornswoggle appeared and ruined what could have been a good segment to me.

The Miz coming to the ring as heel Cena on his "Basic Thuganomics" music was awesome. Also his ‘rap’ on Cena was kinda ok. What if they would give this heel Cena-gimmick to The Miz and have him and Cena feud, I think it would turn out great. But what actually happened on Raw was Jerry “The King” Lawler entering the ring and try to explain to The Miz he isn’t 5-0 against Cena. Then Big Show interrupts and says he’s talked to Vicky and she made a match for Extreme Rules that Big Show knows Cena couldn’t win: a submissionmatch. I guess that’s why we see the Big Show keeps putting people in the Camel Clutch (Cena, Golddust and now Lawler) and also why Cena kept trying to put the STFU on Big Show at Judgment Day.

So Big Show beats up Lawler and one segment later J.R. is at the announcetable, and no explanation why J.R. was backstage? I guess they couldn’t say they taped a Superstars-match before Raw. Seems I’ve got to correct my previous statement after reading JR’s blog. He explained his attendance by saying they taped a Superstars-match before Raw .

The US-title match between MVP and Matt Hardy was next and as expected it was a great match, in the beginning Matt used his cast on MVP’s knee (chop block) and later on MVP extracted some revenge on Matt by stomping on his cast and slamming the cast on the ringsteps. So MVP held on to his title after he finished Matt of with the playmaker.

Next up was Vicky vs Santina with the Miss Wrestlemania title on the line. The match was made a no-DQ match after Santina got on the microphone insulting Vicky. The match saw interference from first Chavo and Regal. I guess Regal interfered because he didn’t want Raw turned into a joke by Santino/Santina or maybe this will get Regal in charge of Raw again.

The Main Event was Cena and Batista vs Legacy in a 2 on 3 handicapmatch. The match itself was entertaining enough for me, Legacy cut the ring in half an went to town on Batista and then on Cena with great teamwork. Awesome moonsault by Cody by the way. The ending of the match was a bit of a let down. I wouldn’t say disappointing, but it just didn’t do it for me. What happened was Big Show tried to come to the ring, only to be overtaken by Flair who handed a steel chair to Cena. Cena then hit Big Show with the Chair all the way to the back. Flair then pushed Dibiasi (I think) from the top turnbuckle, allowing Batista to spear Orton for the win. So Raw ended just like it started: with a WOOOOOO!

The show started with Swagger in the ring complaining about Christian cheating again in their match at Judgment Day. Decent promo. It could be better, but compared to the promo’s Swagger cut when he just debuted, you can see the progress he’s made already. Anyway Tiffany sent him to the back. Walking up the ramp he crossed path’s with Christian, who was thrown of the ramp ‘injuring’ his knee. Christian was making his way to the ring for a good opening match with Paul Burchill. Burchill went, as can be expected after the ‘injured’ knee. In the end Christian got a good series of offense in and executed the killswitch for the win. After the match Christian issued a challenge to Tommy Dreamer for the ECW-championship.

Next match saw “Mr. Woo Woo Woo” Zack Ryder take on a jobber. I know I’ve called Ryder’s gimmick one of the worst ever, but I have to admit he somehow makes it work for him. A “woo woo woo” during the match is funny, I just hope Zack (or the WWE) isn’t going to overdo it. Zack Ryder won the match, which is expected against an unknown jobber (unless you’re MVP on a loosing streak).

Do we really need a Kozlov promo again? Really? In Russian for the most part? Sigh….

On to the Main Event: Finlay vs David Hart Smith. A pretty good match that was given a decent amount of time. The match itself went back and forward, but ended as Natalya and Tyson got involved by distracting Finlay, allowing Smith to hit Finlay with a shoe in the head. Makes you wonder if Finlay is going to get some back up and I’m not talking about Hornswoggle.

The first match was Dreamer vs Christian for the ECW-title. And because it was on first you can rule out the possibility of a title change. The match itself was great and entertaining, some nice high flying by Christian and some submission moves by Dreamer. If anyone followed ECW the last couple of weeks you would be expecting a run in from Swagger, which caused the match to end in a no-contest. After Dreamer and Christian cleared Swagger out of the ring they began a bit of a tug-of-war with the ECW-titlebelt. I predict a Threeway-dance for the ECW-title at Extreme Rules between Christian, Swagger and Dreamer.

The next match was from Raw: Kofi vs Regal. It was an ok match I suppose. Didn’t really care about the match. Kofi won with his ‘trouble in paradise’-kick. Compared to the opening match this one was short. And I can’t say I was not happy about that….

Well after seeing the media-recap of the ‘Denver debacle’ and the announcement of the Main Event of Raw you’ve got to be thinking that when they put the Lakersjersey’s on the Face team and the Denverjersey’s on the Heelteam, the Heel team has no shot at winning because hell isn’t gonna freeze over and pigs still don’t fly.

The Main Event was CM Punk vs Jericho. Great match with a lot of convincing near falls at the end. Also a lot of counters and high flying. Punk won with an inside cradle. Nothing more to be said about it then that it was a great episode of WWE Superstars. In my opinion the best one yet. Also one more thought after watching it, is it me or is everyone using more submission moves lately?

Started with a Edge promo, about being the face of Smackdown because CM Punk and Jericho lost at Judgment Day. After that Teddy Long comes to ring and makes the rematch for Extreme Rules. Jeff comes out proposes match between him and Edge, with the winner deciding what kind of match there will be at the ppv. Jeff goes in crowd bla bla bla. Match is on…

6 man tag is up next. WGTT and Ricky Ortiz (did I miss a heel turn?) vs Morrison and Cryme Tyme. Which was a nice match that Morrison won with Starship Pain. Speaking of that name, what the hell is the WWE doing with the names of finishers…. Crossroads, Starship Pain…. Sounds more like an horrible B-movie.

We got also a rematch between Jericho and CM Punk from WWE Superstars. The match went back and forward again just like the match at Superstars, only on Smackdown Umaga interfered and challenged Punk to an Samoan Strapmatch at Extreme Rules.

Then we got to crank it up with R-Truth vs Dolph Ziggler. Did Grisham just say JR was lip-syncing R-Truth’s music? Anyway Ziggler won. Ziggler leaves the ring, Khali comes out, herds Ziggler back to the ring where Truth hits Ziggler with his springboard corkscrew elbow (or something). Ziggler then leaves through the crowd.

Leaves us with the Main Event between Hardy and Edge. Most of it was already seen at Judgment Day. Hardy won with the swanton bomb and therefore earned the right to name the type of match at Extreme Rules. And Jeff’s choice: a Laddermatch.

Also on Smackdown, diva’s match between McCool and Gail Kim for the nr.1 contendership for the Women’s title (which McCool won after interference from Fox) and an interview with Rey Mysterio (a bit forced on the 6-1-9 chant in my opinion) about why he wears a mask. And I almost forgot… next week Eve vs Layla……

Raw started with an Orton promo where he offered Batista a spot in The Legacy. Since the Orton – Batista match was made already a couple of weeks ago we all knew the answer. But I really didn’t like Batista trying to do corny Cena-jokes, which Cena can barely pull off. And then the fake Batista laugh, it’s almost as bad if not worse then “woo woo woo woo”…. But things lead to Batista vs Priceless in a Handicap match which Priceless won because Batista was DQed for holding(???) a chair. Don’t you have to hit someone first with a chair to be DQed? Or if not do it like Eddie Guerrero did and play like if you were hit to get someone DQed.

Anyway Priceless winning ment that the Main Event would be Legacy vs Batista. Only to see that during the show Batista took out Rhodes and Dibiase, so Orton had to face Batista alone. But when Batista try to shatter Ortons ankle Priceless was able to make their way to the ring to save Orton. So they couldn’t be there 5 minutes earlier???? Anyway Orton made his way out of the ring and Batista ran wild yet again. Batistabomb on Rhodes and a Spear to Dibiase and to finish it off he threw the ringstairs at Orton who ducked out of the way.

That I didn’t really like it was mostly because of Batista still standing after a 3 on 1 stituation, only good thing coming out of this is probably that Orton will win at Judgement Day.

Also on Raw was a rematch from last week between Carlito and The Brian Kendrick. This time The Brian Kendrick beat Carlito. After that he went on the mic claiming he would find The Partner and would challenge for The Tagteamtitles. So any chance it will be Mr Kennedy……..wait for it……Kennedy? The Raw show on 31th may is in Greenbay. Offcourse it could be someone else, I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be The Miz. Since he has been tagging for a long time with Morrison until the Draft.

Talking about The Miz, he’s 3-0 now against Cena (or so he claims to be). Also a good promo again by The Miz. “What is it Cena are you Hurt? Lucky for you this is an exhibition match, not 12 rounds”.

There was a pretty good MVP lounge segment, especially the beginning with Regal and MVP. Matt Hardy came out and started whining again. Kofi was out next attacking Matt from behind… Not very Face-like behavior… But before the MVP Lounge was destroyed Chavo came out with an announcement from Vicky that they would fight in a Tag team match. Which turned out to be a decent tagteammatch with MVP and Kofi teaming against Matt Hardy and Regal. Nothing special, but still enjoyable to me.

Stuff I didn’t mention and didn’t care much for were the Santina segment (I’m a lesbiano or something), the Santina vs Beth match, also another Diva’s tagmatch Kelly Kelly and Micky James vs Maryse and Jillian (lucky for us no singing this week). All in all it wasn’t a great show, but it also wasn’t unwatchable as some claimed it to be.

The Show started with a Mark Henry match, this time Tommy Dreamer was the victim of the Worlds Strongest Slam. This match didn’t do much for me mainly because Mark Henry was in it, sure he’s strong but not the best wrestler on ECW.

One of the things I really like about ECW is not only the new influx of superstars (from developmental) which keeps the show fresh, also the commentary from Matt Striker. He makes brilliant references and at ECW this Tuesday he mentioned the match between Santina and Beth: “Santina got the win on Raw with a ‘small package’.” That made me laugh more than the whole Santina segment on Raw.

Next up was Finlay vs Tyson Kidd, a good match that went back and forward. And just when Finlay was about to put Kidd away with the Celtic Cross, DH Smith debuted at ECW kicking Finlay in the face. After DH Smith was done stomping on Finlay, DH Smith and Tyson Kidd did a Hart Attack (The doubleteammove from Bret Hart and Jim ‘The Anvil” Neidhart) on Finlay. Natalya joined the duo in the ring and thus The Hart Foundation V2.0 was formed. (Although they didn’t officially called it so.)

Whooptiedoo, and yet another week we get a Kozlov video followed by a match against a jobber and this time to top it of an interview… Just before the video we saw Paul Burchill complaining to Tiffany about not being on the show, but there’s room for a no-name jobber? Sure it’s smart booking as it doesn’t destroy the reputation of WWE’s own talent by losing to Kozlov.

At the end of ECW we got the Peepshow with Christian and Swagger. Christian is good on the mic, so no complaints about that. But this segment didn’t really do much for their PPV-match, other than Swagger claiming that Christian cheated and Christian pointing out the fact that Swagger was doing the same thing only that he was outsmarted. Overall it was a decent show.

The First match was Rey Mysterio vs Shelton Benjamin. It was a good enjoyable match, because it was a somewhat quicker paced match. Too bad that Rey ended up a bit injured, but according to several reports online he’s still scheduled to compete at Judgment Day. John Morrison sat in on commentary during this match and I have to say that he improved since the time he was on commentary on ECW with Carlito. After the match Rey won (619, followed by a splash), Shelton and Morrison had a staredown with Shelton trying to punch Morrison. Morrison blocked and punched Shelton instead.

After a great opening match we got Mark Henry vs Christian. Even Christian couldn’t get a decent match out of Henry. Most of the match saw Henry in control, lumbering around the ring. In the end Christian got the win, but the way it happened was not really convincing: Henry sitting down and Christian doing a crossbody from the second rope getting the 3 count. So normally this would be disappointing, but knowing Henry was in the match my expectations weren’t to high. All in all I was happy to see the match end.

So the Main event was Big Show vs Hornswoggle. It shouldn’t be a surprise to see some interference. At first Big Show was taunting Hornswoggle and even lay down to let him hit the Tadpole Splash (which Big Show avoided by rolling away). Just when Big Show was about to use the Knockout Punch, someone interfered on behalf of Hornswoggle. Which was expected, the thing I didn’t expect was that someone being Golddust. Should have made more sense if it were Finlay (the ‘father’) or Cena (Big Shows Judgment Day opponent). So unless the WWE is forming some sort of alliance between Golddust and Hornswoggle, it didn’t make any sense….

The first match was John Morrison & CM Punk vs WGTT and it was pretty good. The only thing that kept going through my mind was the pairing of Morrison en Punk. Not only did they beat each other for the ECW Title and the Tagteam Titles, but they were both in the MITB match not even two months ago. So it seemed a little quick for my taste. Anyway it was good to see CM (custom muscle) Haas again in a more serious role than the one he previously had on RAW.

Next was Ricky Ortiz’s debut in a match against Jeff Hardy. A quick match with a lot of offence from Ortiz followed by a whisper in the wind, twist of fate and a swanton bomb gave Hardy the win. Is it just me or is Hardy’s face paint getting weirder every week? At first I thought the ‘Joker’-esk face paint worked for his character and helped his promo’s but now it’s become weird.

The rematch between R-Truth and Mike Knox happened too. And with J.R. and Grisham putting over Mike Knox big time didn’t convince me to care about this match. R-Truth won with his springboard corkscrew elbow, which was like seeing Jeff Hardy win a match after hitting the whisper in the wind…

What’s up with the announce teams in the ring promoting the PPV? I thought it was strange on RAW, but now again on Smackdown…. What’s the difference with the usual sum up of the PPV?

Great promo’s by Edge and Jericho (about Smackdown is their show) lead to Teddy Long making a match between the two. Egomania was the main event for this show. The mic-work and the match made Edge look a bit face-ish. It was a great match going back and forth ending in a DQ because Jericho brought a chair to the ring. After this it became a clusterf*ck. Jeff Hardy came out and laid out Edge. When he was about to do a swanton Jericho came to the aid of Edge (WTH????). Hardy takes out Jericho (and himself). Enter CM Punk with the briefcase and the ref, with Umaga on his heels. Punk/Umaga and Edge/Hardy were fighting in the crowd, Jericho walked back to the entrance looked back and Rey Mysterio appeared to attack Jericho from behind (again…). I’m used to like and care about Rey, but now with him attacking from behind and playing the snitch (last week) I’m beginning to dislike him….

Also on Smackdown this week a diva’s tag match (what a surprise) between Melina & Gail Kim vs McCool & A(licia) Fox, a Dolph Ziggler vs Jimmy Wang Yang match which Ziggler won. After the match the Great Khali came out threw Ziggler out of the ring, causing Ziggler to retreat to the back. Followed by a backstage catfight between Eve and Layla in a ‘I don’t give a damn’- segment….

That’s my WWEek for you, Judgment Day will be covered on the next edition.